DROWNED DADDY AND DAUGHTER PAINT A PAINFUL PORTRAIT OF DONALD'S NO FREEDOM FOR IMMIGRANTS

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     The powerfully shocking photograph on the left side of this column depicts what is tantamount to cold-blooded murder by Donald Trump and any Republican in Congress who continue to defend Trump's vile and barbaric immigration policy.
Anyone in our country who agrees with such brutality, which is accepted by our G.O.P. lawmakers on Capitol Hill, needs to take a hard look at the aforementioned picture of a dead migrant girl and her dad who merely wanted to come to the United States from El Salvador for a better life.  If my statement angers you, I want you to ask yourself the following question.  "Observing that he clearly doesn't care about the devastating deaths of innocent mothers, fathers, and their children, can I, as a human being, in all good conscience, endorse a xenophobic, racist bigot to serve as president of the United States?"  If your answer is anything other than, "I vehemently oppose the uncivilized cruelty that Trump and his heinous cronies represent so my allegiance now turns to the Democrats," then shame on you.
  
     The gruesome image of Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his 23-month old daughter Valeria should be ensconced in the minds of any decent American and their inner core ought to be horrified by the wickedness that is approved by Trump and the Republicans.  If you dispute my words and, therefore, you're not willing to fight against the savagery that is validated by Trump and the heartless henchmen of his administration, then I have to wonder if you too are a ruthless monster.  Prove to me that you're not.  Tell me that you voted for Donald Trump in 2016, but that you would not do so again.  Tell me that you would encourage proceedings by the U.S. House of Representatives to impeach Trump and that you would support the final blow by the U.S. Senate to convict and remove from office this inhumane creature who is mentally, morally, and ethically unfit to occupy The Oval Office of The White House.

     The Martinez Ramirez family had journeyed by foot, more than 1,000 miles, from their home in Central America to the U.S. border city of Matamoros, Mexico with an aim of seeking asylum in the United States.   America recognizes the right of asylum for individuals as specified by both federal and international law. But when Martinez Ramirez, his wife and child arrived on Sunday, June 23rd, 2019, The B & M International Bridge, which connects to Brownsville, Texas, was closed and would not reopen until the next day.  Reportedly, there were hundreds of people on line trying to get across the bridge.  That bridge should never be closed.  

     Our Founding Fathers put out a welcome mat to immigrants from all around the world.  The United States should go back to being a country with open arms along our 2,000-mile southern border, not a nation that clamps handcuffs on the wrists of people who simply want to pursue the American dream.  Just because they are migrants, immigrants, asylum seekers, or refugees doesn't make them criminals. When Americans travel abroad for a vacation, or desire to reside on foreign soil, that wouldn't necessarily make any of us a criminal.  Crossing the U.S. border should not be a crime.  Immigrants need not be incarcerated.  They need to be given freedom, and we must allow these law abiding individuals and families to have a pathway to quick and productive citizenship.

     Desperate to make it to America, and frustrated that they were unable to cross the bridge over the Rio Grande, Martinez Ramirez and young Valeria swam in tandem in an attempt to reach the U.S.A. The girl's mother, Tania Vanessa Avalos, followed on the back of a family friend. Avalos later told authorities that the river's waters were fast-moving and rough and, therefore, she decided to return to the Mexican bank after she observed her husband and daughter approach the American shoreline, sink below the surface of the Rio Grande, and be swept away.  Their bodies were discovered by Mexican officials on Monday, June 24th near Matamoros, but not too far from Brownsville.

    

     The plight of Martinez Ramirez and his family remind me of Dorothy and her friends along The Yellow Brick Road, who could view Emerald City in the distance, and their goal of reaching The Wizard of Oz.  Martinez Ramirez, Avalos, and Valeria had America in eyesight, but unlike Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion - who eventually made it to "see the Wizard" - a young family from El Salvador met disaster instead.  "There's no place like home" should not only be a line in a movie. Immigrants like the Martinez Ramirez family and others should be given a fair humanitarian shake to call the United States of America...their home. 

     For a migrant family - this one or any other - to perish because of Donald Trump's refusal to make it easier for them to apply for asylum is downright deplorable.  Those who leave their native country do it for legitimate reasons, and they face treacherous conditions along the way.  Their rationale is generally to flee the violence, bloodshed, and/or poverty in their homeland with a hope they can start anew in the United States without the threat of persecution...or prosecution.  Financially, this loving family could not survive in El Salvador.  Martinez Ramirez and Avalos wanted a chance to work and to save up money so they could buy a house in our land of opportunity. They wanted safety and a better future for themselves and their daughter.   

     Photojournalist Julia Le Duc captured the heart-wrenching image of a deceased father and daughter, which paints a painful portrait that freedom and liberty for immigrants - under a Donald Trump administration - is no longer a bedrock principle of America as our nation's Founders had envisioned when creating our country more than two centuries ago. However, engraved on to a bronze plaque and still mounted inside the lower level of The Statue Of Liberty's pedestal are the words of American poet Emma Lazarus, who in 1883 wrote the following.

     "Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
     The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
     Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
     I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"   

     An icon of freedom, the Lady in New York Harbor has represented that sonnet since she made America her home in 1886.  Although the photograph to the left has been altered to reflect her tears, it undoubtedly symbolizes the sentiments of most Americans.   

     An illustration of doom and death, combined with the appalling and abominable sights of babies and other children locked in cages after they've been

separated from their parents, have tragically not convinced the Republican-controlled Senate, along with about 40 percent of Americans nationwide, that Donald Trump is evil, malicious, delusional, and corrupt, and he has exposed people - not dangerous wild animals but people - to perilous predicaments for which he shows no concern.  

   

     The photo to the left had originally been featured with an article by The Associated Press that began with the following paragraph.  "Inside an old warehouse in south Texas, hundreds of children wait in a series of cages created by metal fencing.  One cage had 20 children inside."  This is not who we are. This is not who we should be. This is not America.

     As they attempted to reach the United States in the raging waters of the Rio Grande, the 25-year old Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, with parental love, tucked his toddler daughter Valeria under his t-shirt as she clung on to her papa with a draped arm around his neck.  That haunting embrace of a father and child, face down and lifeless, should put an emotional shiver up the spines of every American. And to those of you who don't feel that way, do you not have a heart? Do you not have a soul?  

     And that's The Controversy for today.

     I'm Gary B. Duglin.

     "We'll talk again."

The Controversy is a publication of GBD Productions.  Founder and Editor-In-Chief of The Controversy is Gary B. Duglin.

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Photo credits: Julia Le Duc/The Associated Press (Tragedy in the Rio Grande), KGC Environmental Services (B & M International Bridge), Maria Estela Avalos (The Family), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Warner Bros. Pictures (The Wizard Of Oz), Maria Estela Avalos (Father and Daughter), National Park Service (The Statue Of Liberty Plaque with Emma Lazarus' Poem), Change.org (Lady Liberty Cries), Olivier Douliery/Pool/Getty Images (Donald Trump) and The Associated Press (Migrants in Cages)

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